The Ukraine government has passed amended its municipal waste law, which among other changes, has introduced a separate municipal waste collection system in the country.
The introduction of this waste collection system obliges the developers of real estate (of all types, including residential, administrative and manufacturing) to create special sites for containers to store and collect municipal waste and also requires the property and land owners/lessees and the waste collection companies to ensure separation at source and separate collection of municipal waste.
Specialized bodies will be established to take responsibility for identifying abandoned waste and its owners, making decisions regarding cleaning-up and further disposing of abandoned waste and imposing administrative fines on persons guilty of illegitimate waste dumping.
The Ukraine government will also introduce a competitive approach to selecting the providers of municipal waste collection services for a particular region, which requires local councils to select a service provider through tenders and will require property and land owners/lessees to enter into agreements with the selected provider with respect to collection of their municipal waste.
Waste incineration is also restricted to energy generation purposes only under the new law, which also prohibits the development, construction and exploitation of the municipal waste landfills which are not equipped with underground water protection and biogas and filtrate collection and treatment systems.
Violation of waste legislation will also be subject to an increased administrative fine two to three times greater than previously at about $43-$170 for individuals, $106-$213 for private entrepreneurs and companies' officers.
